Be Memorable. Be Ricky Bobby.

Having a reputation that sells itself is a word-of-mouth goal many strive to achieve. Your reputation is in part differentiated with personal branding in an effort to stand-out or as Khristian Gutierrez taught me, ‘peacock’, against the competition.

Peacocking involves standing out through clothing or any other media in an over the top manner, for the purpose of attracting the power of attention.

Peacocking isn’t just about being outlandish or outrageous, it’s about channeling the attention in an appropriate manner for all parties: the ones you are trying to attract as well as the general audience. One must never forget the golden rule: Never be the first to bring up the peacock!

It’s tempting but resist the urge regardless of how much you want to point it out in case it’s getting into the awkward stage where you are getting weird looks.

Peacocking is an art that we have perfected many times at company trade shows and events – the pictures in the links below speak for themselves.

• Sample Event 1
• Sample Event 2

This technique is dependent on your company but does that mean all bets are off if your company is more conservative? Not at all. There are other less obvious media outlets to take advantage of to support your own branding – your phone and email alias!

When we were setting up our new phone system at Passport we had the ability to add our first and last name in the system to display on the phones when we called each other. Being in the heart of Nascar country, I naturally choose a name that fit me best to display as my caller ID. To my surprise, on a call shortly thereafter, it was brought to my attention that Ricky Bobby also displays externally.

Three years later, the reaction to my inbound call to clients, partners, friends, and co-workers is always received with the same reaction – laughter. For the new comers, there is sometimes a curiosity factor where they wont pick up but in the majority of cases will call right back within minutes saying how much they laughed after hearing my message. Regardless of the nature of the call, they never forget that Ricky Bobby called them - we are now forever 'shake and bake'.

Similar to a personalized license plate, using an email moniquer is another great tactic to make it easy for folks to remember you. At Passport, we all have alias that can be as simple as initials or something more unique like danger@, evangelist@, beard@, spills@ (a sample of emails to people at Passport!). When someone sees an email like [email protected] on your business card, not only will they remember it but it allows you to customize your own brand and make you memorable!

Push the envelope a bit but don’t cross the comfort zone and pick a feather that could potentially backfire and have the reverse impact.

“If you ain’t first, you’re last.” If you’re last, make sure you are memorable!